Water into Wine

Hello all!
If you remember way far back to the beginning of October, you will remember me posting about a winery that I visited with my host family and how we sampled various unfermented wines. Well, today we returned to the winery with two other Canadians and their host families to sample the finished product!
It was really interesting sampling wine that we had tried before it became alcoholized (is that a word? I want to say alcoolisé) and seeing how much it had changed (and gotten better!). There were 6 wines in total to sample, as well as a type of champagne. There were definitely a couple that I preferred and since wine, even good wine, isn't that expensive, I bought two bottles of wine, one red and one white, and a bottle of champagne (spoiler alert: Merry Christmas, Mom and Dad!).

Siobhain and I sampling the goodness.

Along with the many glasses of wine we were able to try, they also had some local farm products to sample with bread, called charcutrie (like a meat spread, or pate if you know it). It was also delicious. And of course, because of where we are situated, they had oysters to try if you were brave. Michael likes oysters, so he had a few. Siobhain was brave and actually tried two as well. Me, not so much. I tried them last time I was in France and didn't even succeed in swallowing one, due to the fact that it felt like I had a ginormous booger in my mouth. Gross. Anyways, they are braver than I am, end of story.
After our excursion, which lasted about 3 hours and was full of wine and French-speaking, we headed back to my host family's place for some lunch. We didn't actually sit down until practically 3:00pm for lunch! We had some potatoes, duck, bread and cheese, and ice cream and baked apples (and more wine). I'm pretty sure that I drank more wine today than I ever have in my life (ok, maybe not, but I'm all wined out for now, haha). We had a nice long lingering meal and chatted about whatever. Overall it was time very well spent in some great company. It also was a wonderful way to spend a very rainy day! I also found it really hard to transition back into English speaking after an entire day of speaking French... which I guess is a good thing!
Tonight I'll be heading out for a friend's birthday but hopefully not staying out as late as last night. After all, it is the last week of classes and I have 2 tests and 2 assignments to do. Thank goodness for free Sunday afternoons! Time to hit the books.
Only one more week until traveling! Dublin-Munich-Strasbourg-Brussels-Amsterdam... and then CANADA!!!!